Lake Issyk-Kul:
Underwater archaeologists recently unveiled a hidden city in Lake Issyk-Kul, revealing a lost civilization from seven hundred years ago.
- Lake Issyk-Kul is located in northeastern Kyrgyzstan.
- Surrounding the lake are the snowcapped Tian Shan mountains (the Heaven’s mountains).
- It has an endorheic basin, meaning it has no outflow to other bodies of water like rivers or oceans.
- The water in the lake is blue and brackish.
- It is after Lake Titicaca in South America, the world’s second-largest high mountain lake.
- It is the second-largest saline lake in the world after the Caspian Sea. It is also the largest lake in Kyrgyzstan.
- It ranks seventh in the list of the deepest lakes in the world.
- Owing to its depth, low salinity, and warm springs, it does not freeze, even in winter. Issyk-Kul translates as “hot lake”.
- From the lakeshore, all major landscape types, from subtropical to tundra, occur in close succession.
- In 1976, it was included on the Ramsar list as a wetland of international importance.
